A SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES REPORT AND PREDICTION:
He also said the show will become more serialized and more “science fiction” for the rest of the season (Woo Hoo!). Surely that means we’ll get nine awesome new episodes then Fox will immediately cancel it and replace it with something that has the word “Dancing” in the title.
Ouch. Well, it’s happened before. Possible minor spoilers at the link.
GET THE SEX YOU DESERVE. From the comments: “If you’re going to blame it for increasing the general standard of living and wealth to the point that somebody can earn money writing this drivel about sex instead of laboring in the heat (or cold) to scrape up enough food to stay on the topside of the dirt for another 24 hours, Capitalism will take the rap.”
UNDERFUNDED / OVERGENEROUS PENSIONS PRODUCING RESISTANCE? Fullerton city council says no to pension increases. “Now comes Fullerton’s city council, which this week voted against a contract to increase most government workers’ pensions by 25 percent, retroactive to the employee’s hire date. The council had approved the new deal in a closed door session, according to the Orange County Register, but then backed away from it when one council member made the pension increase public. . . . We keep wondering, given moves by local governments up and down the state, is this the latest brush fire in a coming conflagration that could touch state pensions?”
Given that the state’s broke, and taxpayers are already suffering, I’d count it as likely.
A COMPELLING REASON for a space program.
MORE ON THOSE UNDERFUNDED / OVERGENEROUS PUBLIC PENSIONS: City Employee Pay Is Outpacing Private Sector, Report Says. “Bolstered in part by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s spending, the average New York City employee cost the city $107,000 a year in wages, health insurance, pension and other benefits in the 2008 fiscal year, an increase of 63 percent since 2000, according to a new report. City worker compensation grew twice as fast as that of employees in the private sector and elsewhere in the public sector during the same period. . . . The increase was driven by contractual raises that outpaced the inflation rate, and by the rising cost of health insurance and pension benefits, said the commission, a business-backed research group.”
PERVERSE INCENTIVES: Bad economic times are boom times for economists and policymakers — who are, you know, supposed to keep us out of bad economic times . . . .
MORE ON Clint Eastwood and Gran Torino.
It’s certainly doing well at the box office. Plus, what a writer’s dream: “Novice screenwriter Nick Schenk managed to get a copy of Gran Torino into Eastwood’s hands and the legendary actor/director/composer decided to star in and direct the movie without changing a word of dialogue.”
HMM: Obama Calls for ‘Grand Bargain’ on Economy: ‘Everybody’s Going to Have to Give’. Really? Even the takers?
Plus, Stephanopoulos takes dictation: “The big treat of the day was having Malia and Sasha Obama tour visit our This Week control room. The girls got on my executive producer’s headset and gave me the question they most want their Dad to answer.” In other words, it was like most Obama interviews . . . .
DAVE KOPEL continues his investigation of Pro Publica, an “investigative journalism” outfit that seems rather political. Certainly no outfit similarly financed by right-leaning money would get as much of a pass. . . .
UPDATE: Pro Publica spokesman Mike Webb emails: “ProPublica is going to have a response to Dave Kopel’s article on Monday. So I hope you’ll link to that when it’s up.” I will.
YUK: Hospital Scrubs Are a Germy, Deadly Mess. We need to go back to the strict sanitation mindset of the pre-antibiotic era. Because we’re rapidly entering the post-antibiotic era, and nanotechnology/biotechnology probably won’t be ready to take up the slack for 20 years.
MEET THE NEW CHEF, SAME AS THE . . . Obama keeps Bush’s White House Chef.
TIM BLAIR: Peace Lovers Love Hate.
BARACK OBAMA kidnaps Jack Bauer? (Via Big Hollywood).
MORE CNN VIDEO QUESTIONS.
CNN DIGS ITSELF IN DEEPER: “Given that CNN’s own staff can’t vouch for the video first-hand, and that very serious questions have been raised about its credibility, I don’t see why CNN would want to double-down on this one.” Because they figure they can get away with it.
WASHINGTON POST: Obama’s Attorney General Pick Faces Growing Criticism.
HMM: What Did Leon Panetta Know About Rendition And When Did He Know It? I guess if we get a “truth and reconciliation commission” people can ask him about it, along with various members of Congress. But, heck, he’ll probably just claim executive privilege and spoil the fun . . . .
TURNING RETIRED 747S INTO hotels. As the piece notes, with the aviation downturn there may be plenty of those available soon.
WILL THE FATE OF THE CONSTITUTION turn on an 8×10 framed certificate?
WHAT EVERYBODY NEEDS: A personal submarine.
WELL, IF YOU ASK ME, free markets are “social justice.”
REMEMBERING 60 years of fun from Wham-O. With some vintage video.
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